


Terrible Sisters

by sanguinity



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Sisters, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5998521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara keeps starting fights with bullies. Alex keeps having to step in and finish them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terrible Sisters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



This is the third kid this month that Alex has beaten up for Kara, and her hand _hurts_. "You can't keep doing this!" Alex tells her sister, now that the two of them are alone. At least Kara is picking fights with kids Alex's age now (mixed blessing though that is) and waiting until she's off school property. Alex is smart enough to know that permanent records are mostly a joke, but she also knows you can't be an honors student while suspended for fighting. 

And Eliza Danvers will one-hundred-percent kill Alex if she gets herself kicked off the honors track. Alex's parents have four Ph.D.s between them, and she knows exactly what expectations they have for her.

Unfortunately for Alex, one of those expectations is keeping Kara out of trouble. If _Kara_ gets into a fistfight, Alex will be in much, much deeper trouble than if Alex just sucks it up and punches the kid first herself.

Besides, it's not like Danny Gilpatrick didn't deserve it.

But goddammit, her hand _hurts_.

"He was bullying Martin Evans! Martin’s tiny!" Kara shouts.

"I _know_ that!" Alex roars back.

"So what am I supposed to do? Just _let_ him?" 

_"No!_ You're supposed to... go to the principal! Tell an adult!" 

Her sister's eyes state very clearly that she didn't come to this planet _yesterday_. Kara Zor'El may be hopelessly naive about some things, but she knows exactly how much good it does to go to a teacher.

Alex sighs. "Fine. Come get me. Come get me _first_ , before it gets to the punching. And I'll... I don't know what I'll do. I'll do something." She can't _think_ , her hand hurts too much. She winces and holds her fist up near her collarbone, where it throbs a little less.

"Let me see," Kara says, suddenly gentle, and takes Alex's hand. She stares at it fixedly. "It's not broken," she pronounces. When that information helps less than she hoped, she frowns. "You should ice it," she advises, and then worryingly, she sucks in a deep breath. 

Alex snatches her hand back. "You'll give me frostbite! I'm not as tough as you, Kara!"

"I won't! I've been practicing!" Kara protests, but when Alex doesn't relent, Kara digs through her pack and comes up with a water bottle instead. She sets it down on the ground and blows it into a block of ice -- Alex is newly glad she put the kibosh on icing her hand directly -- then Kara picks the bottle up again and kneads it, the ice crushing easily between her fingers. Soon she's improvised an ice pack for Alex, and she ties it on to her sister's hand, watching Alex's face anxiously for cues that she's being too rough.

The ice helps. Alex takes a deep breath, and then another, willing the cold to work. She doesn't want to have to explain to her mother what happened this time.

"You are, you know," Kara says.

"I am what?" Alex asks, still thinking about their mother.

"As tough as me. Tougher."

Alex looks at her sister properly, and sees the sadness and frustration. Kara has lost everything: her family, her planet, the job she was supposed to do here. If she’s picking a fight with some bully every time Alex turns around, it’s only because Kara is trying to find a purpose and a place.

Alex already has one. She's a big sister.

"I'm not," Alex says, plaintively. She misses her father with everything in her, every single day, and the thought of something taking her mother or Kara away from her, too... She is so angry with Kara, far too often, but she'll punch every Danny Gilpatrick in the world if that's what it takes to keep her. "I'm really, really not," she repeats, because she can't imagine living through what Kara has. And then, because she can't talk about any of that, she holds up her hand. "And I've got the broken hand to prove it."

"It's not broken," Kara repeats, sulkily.

"Don't care. You're still carrying my books home for me." 

Kara gives her a quick, hopeful glance, and seeing that she's forgiven -- _this time_ \-- helps ease Alex's backpack off her shoulders and past her icepack. The ice is melting, making a mess, the water running down Alex's forearm. 

"What have you got in here, rocks?" Kara asks, as if the weight of Alex's biology, chemistry, and calculus texts is any trouble for her. Then she skips out ahead of her sister for the sheer pleasure of it. 

She doesn't stay as solidly on the ground as she ought.

"Kara," Alex warns, but Kara is already hurrying back.

"I know, I know," she placates. "I'm a terrible sister, I'm sorry."

"You're not a terrible sister," Alex says, because she can see that kicked puppy look in Kara's eyes again, the one where she's not certain, yet, that the Danvers really are her family now. "You're just a sister. All sisters are terrible." 

And then, because she can see Kara about to say that _Alex_ isn't -- and Alex _is_ , because only a terrible, terrible sister would be angry with Kara for wanting to defend Martin Evans from Danny Gilpatrick -- Alex cuts her off. "Anyway, we've got to figure out what we're going to do about Danny. Something that, hopefully, doesn't break my hand this time."

Kara smiles at her, brilliantly happy. “I _told_ you, it’s not _broken_ ,” she scolds, and the two of them spend the rest of the walk home planning Danny Gilpatrick's downfall.


End file.
